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The Irish Independent reports that Finance Minister
Michael Noonan was last night hoping a new EU move would help us return to
normal borrowing on international markets within two years.

The
Government was also cautiously more upbeat about securing a cut in the interest
rate on the bailout by the end of next month.

Behind-the-scenes talks between Ireland and France on the interest rate have
intensified in recent days, government sources said.

The EU yesterday put a 'firewall' in place to protect Ireland and Portugal
from the worsening crisis in Greece.

By making changes to its giant bailout fund, the EU hopes to convince
investors to start lending to Ireland again by the end of 2012 or the start of
2013.

Changing the rules of its future bailout funds, the EU put private lenders on
the same footing as European governments.

This means both sides will have the same rights to repayment if a country
cannot cover all of its debts in future.

Up to now, private investors were concerned that governments would have the
first call on repayment funds, so they were not interested in lending to
countries already in a bailout for fear they wouldn't get their cash back.

EU finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg also agreed to increase the size
of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to €780bn from the current
€440bn.

On top of that, the ministers also made an important change to the future
rescue fund.

The so-called European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which will come into force
in mid-2013 when the EFSF expires, will not have 'preferred-creditor status'
when it helps countries that have already been bailed out, said Jean-Claude
Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister who also chairs the meetings of eurozone
finance ministers.

ACCESS

They hope this important change will help already-bailed-out countries regain
access to debt markets.

The changes mean that private investors should now have more confidence in
countries like Ireland that have received money from the bailout fund.

The 'preferred-creditor status' was spooking US investors and deterring them
from lending to Ireland, Mr Noonan claimed.

"This is very good news for Ireland -- it will help us get back into the
markets," he said.

"No matter how well we were doing under the programme, it was blocking us
potentially from getting back into the market."

Taoiseach Enda Kenny also welcomed the changes to the ESM as "positive for
Europe and not just Ireland".

Meanwhile, eurozone finance ministers gave Greece two weeks from Monday to
approve stricter austerity measures in return for another €12bn in emergency
loans, piling pressure on Athens to get its ragged finances in order.

After two days of crisis meetings, the ministers effectively issued Athens an
ultimatum, saying that the Greek government, parliament and broader society had
until July 3 to approve a new package of spending cuts, tax hikes and
privatisation measures in order to receive the next tranche of EU/IMF aid.

National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) chief executive John Corrigan,
said that the changes to the EU bailout terms were a "helpful" step for
Ireland's return to the international money markets.

PROGRESSIVE

The NTMA will try to tap outside investors for cash in late 2012 or early
2013, before the existing EU-IMF loan programme officially ends.

In a further development, the Government was slightly more upbeat last night
about breaking the stalemate over the interest rate cut.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is demanding a hike in our corporation tax
for a cut in the bailout interest rate.

But a coalition source said there was now "more progressive engagement" with
France on the 1pc interest rate cut on our bailout funds and said Germany was
increasingly comfortable with the reduction.

The Irish Independent also reports that
minister with responsibility for pensions Joan Burton admitted yesterday her
department had major reservations about the new levy on private pensions.

Social Protection Minister Burton acknowledged her department had written to
Finance Minister Michael Noonan pointing out the levy could force some company
pension schemes to close.

The levy on private schemes has been introduced to fund a jobs initiative,
but it could "incentivise or force" some pension schemes to wind up in deficit.

Seven out of 10 defined benefit schemes are in deficit, and the levy would
make the funding problems worse, the letter states.

The levy involves a 0.6pc charge on the value of pension funds at the end of
June and has to be paid each September. Many schemes will be forced to reduce
the pensions of retired members and the pension benefits of those who have yet
to retire.

LETTER

Asked about the letter yesterday, Minister Burton said the levy has
implications for her department.

Launching the annual report of the Pensions Board, she said her reservations
about it were lessened when it was pointed out the levy would only be in place
for four years.

Chief executive of the Pensions Board Brendan Kennedy would not say if he had
advised the Government against introducing the levy. "The question of the levy
is a question for the Government," he said.

The board, which is the State's regulator for pensions and has a role
promoting the provision of pensions, provided technical advice to the Department
of Finance on the levy, Mr Kennedy said.

But he refused to say if the board had advised the Minister for Finance on
the wisdom of introducing the levy.

However, Mr Kennedy admitted the levy would reduce the value of pension fund
assets.

The Pensions Board boss strongly criticised trustees of pension schemes for
taking on too much risk with scheme assets.

The average fund had around 60pc of its money in equities and property,
exposing schemes to potential losses.

The board said it was more than three years since stock markets crashed, but
it had seen no noticeable reduction by Irish pension schemes in their exposure
to equities.

The board said that the greatest single risk to Irish pension schemes was
investment risk and the failure to manage this risk was the main reason why so
many people would have less at retirement then they expected.

The board estimated that 75pc of defined benefit schemes were in deficit with
the funding deficit substantial in many cases.

Defined benefit schemes in the private sector traditionally promise half of
salary on retirement for those with 40 years' service.

Losses in defined contribution schemes were similar.

The board has relaxed a deadline for schemes to achieve minimum funding
standards.

There has been a sharp fall-off in the numbers saving for their retirement.

Last year, 43,400 fewer people were in a pension scheme than in 2009. This
brought down to 810,000 the number of people with a pension. But some 330,000 of
these people were in the public service.

Asked about plans to reduce the tax reliefs on pensions, Ms Burton said this
was a budgetary decision.

But she favours a move similar to the one in the UK where there is a lifetime
cap on the size of each pension pot of £1.8m.

The Irish Times reports that global stock markets continued their downward spiral yesterday
as euro zone finance ministers delayed the release of €12
billion in aid to Greece and Italy faced the threat of a ratings
cut.

Markets were taken by surprise yesterday morning as
investors awoke to the announcement that the €12 billion aid
package would not be released until the Greek parliament backed
a new austerity plan, despite indications late last week from
senior European officials that the deal would be endorsed
quickly.

The release of the funds, scheduled to take place in July,
depends on the Greek government surviving a vote of confidence
today.

European shares fell to a three-month closing low yesterday,
as the market continued to look for certainty on the Greek
issue.

National benchmark indices fell in every western European
market. In Paris the CAC slid 0.6 per cent, while Germany’s DAX
index fell 0.2 per cent. The FTSE 100 slipped 0.4 per cent,
while in Dublin the Iseq closed down half a per cent lower.

Banking stocks accounted for some of the largest losses amid
major concerns about their liquidity and funding positions.

Barclays, BNP Paribas, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland all
saw significant falls, though traders noted that volumes across
the board were extremely low as uncertainty about Greece pushed
investors to the sidelines.

Meanwhile, volatility continued on the bond markets.

The extra yield investors demand to hold Italian debt instead
of benchmark German bunds widened after Moody’s said Italy’s
credit ratings may be cut.

Ten-year Italian yields climbed three basis points to 4.85
per cent after being as high as 4.88 per cent. The yield jumped
to 4.94 per cent at the end of last week, the most since March
11th. The spread between 10-year Italian bonds and German bunds
widened to 190 basis points after reaching 204 basis points on
Thursday, the most since January 11th.

Equivalent-maturity Spanish yields were one basis point
higher at 5.58 per cent, leaving the spread over German bunds
three basis points wider at 263 basis points.

The euro continued to waver yesterday, down 0.8 per cent
against the dollar at one point, though it did regain ground
during the day. Brent crude oil fell by 82 cents a barrel to
$112.39 a barrel, while US oil lost 30 cents a barrel to $92.71
a barrel.

Meanwhile, authorities in Dublin welcomed the announcement
that the European Stability Mechanism, the permanent crisis fund
that will replace the European Financial Stability Facility from
June 2013, will not have preferred creditor status when it comes
to loans to Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

The Department of Finance said the preferred creditor clause
had been identified as a “significant impediment and risk
factor” by default buyers of Irish bonds.

“The amendment is very good news for Ireland,” Minister for
Finance Michael Noonan said.

“The change makes it possible now for Ireland to go back into
the markets and be sure that there are people there that will
lend us money.”

The Irish Times also reports that EBS building society subsidiary Haven Mortgages has reported a
€6 million loss for last year despite steps to improve margins.

Haven, the brokerage channel for the building society which is
being subsumed into AIB, saw provisions for impaired loans more
than treble to €17.3 million over the year.

Despite the rise in impairments, the overall loss was in line
with 2009 because of a rise in income from interest.

The company said interest income rose just over 15 per cent
to €34.3 million mainly due to increased mortgage lending during
2010 and also because of an increase in mortgage margins.

At the operating level, Haven reported profits of €4.9
million in 2010 before impairments compared to a loss of €2
million the previous year.

The company reduced operating costs in the year to just over
€5 million from €7.8 million in 2009.

In a review of the business, the company said the brokerage
market now accounted for close to a third of all EBS’s mortgage
business. Established in 2007, when EBS finally agreed to deal
with intermediaries in the mortgage market, the company said it
now had market share of 12.4 per cent compared to about 10 per
cent in 2009.

It acknowledged that the market as a whole was contracting
significantly. “However, although reducing, it remains an active
market,” the company’s directors stated.

The rise in market share “clearly demonstrates Haven’s
ability to remain competitive during a very challenging year”.

The company said affordability levels for new homeowners were
now at their highest levels in 25 years. Average mortgage
repayments had fallen by 48 per cent over the past three years
to €639 a month.

However, with directors expecting no economic recovery before
2013, Haven is cautious in the outlook for growth in the
mortgage market. “This reduced level of repayments will take
time to translate into mortgage transactions and, as a result,
the mortgage market in 2011 is expected to be in line with 2010
levels.”

The Irish Examiner reports that the first steps to provide a €1.2 billion
state-backed loans scheme for start-up businesses have been announced by
Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton.

The annual €400 million fund is set to be up and running by the autumn,
according to his department.

Opening an Irish online social networking business yesterday in Dublin, Mr
Bruton said a tender notice had gone out to find the company to design the
scheme.

The three-year loans scheme will see a promised €1.2bn lent to start-up and
innovative businesses. The loans will be given out by banks but partially
guaranteed by the Government.

It is estimated the scheme will cost the State around €12m for every full year,
based on administration costs and the underwriting costs of guaranteeing the
loans. The online notice to design the scheme, launched recently, calls for
companies to propose best international practice in how the partial loans scheme
can be run.

Such schemes have operated in Chile, Taiwan as well as other European states,
the minister’s spokesman said.

The loans scheme was announced as part of the Government’s recent jobs
initiative launch.

Thousands of businesses are expected to benefit from the scheme, which is
designed to help firms that do not currently qualify for bank loans because they
have insufficient collateral to back up their borrowings.

After a shortlist of five companies are chosen to help design the scheme over
the summer, it is expected to be rolled out in October.

Mr Bruton yesterday opened the expanded offices of SkillPages, a high-growth
online social networking company which already has one million members
worldwide. The company also has offices in Silicon Valley, California.

Chief executive Iain McDonald said: "What we do is connect people with skills to
people who need them. If you have a skill, you can create a skill page that’s
free. People can find you through searching on Google or through searching on SkillPages directly."

Mr Bruton said yesterday following his trade visit to Silicon Valley, where he
met over 20 companies, that he expected some of them to bring jobs to Ireland.

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IMF ties Greek aid to bail-out pledges - -€12bn tranche blocked weeks before due; IMF officials said they had been
consistent in their determination that funding must be in place for the next
year before they can distribute the next tranche. Both the IMF and European
Union are also insisting Greece pass new austerity measures.

Paulson fund loses $500m on Sino stake - - US hedge fund sells holding in
forest group; “Due to the uncertainty over Sino Forest’s public disclosures
and financial statements, we have sold our stock and await the results of the
independent committee’s investigation,” Mr Paulson said in a statement.

Boeing and Airbus call time on duopoly - - Dominance of commercial aircraft
market over, says US jet chief; Speaking on the first day of the Paris Air Show,
Jim Albaugh, head of Boeing’s civil jet division, made the frank admission as
Brazilian, Chinese, Canadian and Russian companies are all set to enter the
100-seater- plus market with jets of their own in the next five years. “The
days of the duopoly with Airbus are over,” he said.

Internet suffix scramble looms for companies - - Businesses to bear cost to
protect their brands; For a starting price of about $500,000, the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will allow companies and community
groups to create customised domain names – such as .canon for the camera maker
or .london for the English capital. So-called “generic” domains, putting
common words after the “dot” in addresses, will extend the system
further.

Bubble 2.0: Inflated expectations of social media - -
For many (apart from the likes of Facebook), the prospects of producing
sustainable profits look as doubtful as they did for the dotcoms a decade ago.
“You have companies that aren’t profitable, which makes it hard to value
them,” says Ryan Jacob, portfolio manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, a
specialist US mutual fund. “But they’re growing at much faster rates even
than the 1990s. That’s the conundrum.”

Gideon Rachman: Political union cannot fix the euro - - The
real problem is political and cultural. There is not a strong enough common
political identity in Europe to support the single currency. That is why German,
Dutch and Finnish voters are revolting against the idea of bailing out Greece
again – while Greeks riot against what they see as a new colonialism imposed
from Brussels and Frankfurt.

Market Insight: Last stand in debt crisis will be fought in
Italy - - Edward Altman and Maurizio Esentato say the result of the Italian
“battle” is not clear. We know that, despite its huge public debt, sluggish
economy, ageing population and political uncertainties, Italy enjoys a wealthy
consumer and corporate reservoir of capital and perhaps as much as 65 per cent
of its outstanding public debt is held by Italian private individuals and
institutions.

Steven Rattner: Savour sweet scent of Germany’s success - -
For the first time since 1992, fewer than 3m Germans are unemployed, and
inflation – the perennial obsession of the descendants of the Weimar Republic –
remains muted. Business people buzz with self-confidence and even a subtler
version of the arrogance evident before the integration of East Germany drained
$2,000bn from the West and gave rise to the phrase “the sick man of Europe”.

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subscription information, click here

Wal-Mart Case Is a Blow for Big Cases and Their Lawyers - - With the
dismissal of a lawsuit brought on behalf of 1.5 million women who worked at
Wal-Mart, the Supreme Court tightened the rules for how a large group of
individuals can join together to sue; In his opinion, Justice Scalia said it was
unacceptable to allow employment discrimination lawsuits to proceed as huge
class actions when monetary awards would be based on a broad formula per
plaintiff, without having an individual assessment of how much each plaintiff
had suffered.

Nokia Unveils a New Smartphone -- Nokia
introduced on Tuesday the N9, a sleek, touch-screen smartphone that is
designed for one-hand use; The N9, which will sell unsubsidized for the
equivalent of about $670 to $760 for 16 and 64 gigabyte models, is no
panacea for Nokia, which is well behind in the fast-growing market for
smartphones and was leapfrogged in revenue by Apple in the first quarter.
Late last month, Nokia issued a second-quarter profit warning and abandoned
its 2011 outlook, a move that sent its stock tumbling more than 17 percent.

Op-Ed:
Get Radical: Raise Social Security - - With certain adjustments, Social
Security could provide up to half the average worker’s earnings; Thomas
Geoghegan, the author of “Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When
It’s Flat on Its Back,” says: "Right now Social Security pays out 39
percent of the average worker’s preretirement earnings. While jaws may drop
inside the Beltway, we could raise that to 50 percent. We’d still be near the
bottom of the league of the world’s richest countries — but at least it would be
a basement with some food and air. We have elderly people living on less than
$10,000 a year. Is that what Democrats want to 'save'?"

Banking’s Moment of Truth - - Joe Nocera says why banks shouldn’t win
the fight over capital requirements; Banks always want capital requirements to
be as low as possible, because the less capital they have, the more risk they
can take and thus the more money they can make (and the bigger the executives’
bonuses). But so what? Trading some bank profits for a safer financial system is
a deal most Americans would take in a heartbeat.

Upending Anonymity, These Days the Web Unmasks Everyone - - Pervasive social
media services, cheap cellphone cameras, free photo and video Web hosts have
made privacy all but a thing of the past; A commuter in the New York area who
verbally tangled with a conductor last Tuesday — and defended herself by asking
“Do you know what schools I’ve been to and how well-educated I am?”— was
publicly identified after a fellow rider posted a cellphone video of the
encounter on YouTube. The woman, who had gone to N.Y.U., was ridiculed by a
cadre of bloggers, one of whom termed it the latest episode of “Name and
Shame on the Web.